Barack Obama is lending Joe Biden his Democratic star power for the first time in the hope of enticing support and small-dollar donations as Democrats try to catch up to Republican fundraising.
The Biden campaign has gleefully touted the virtual event, slated for Tuesday night, since it was announced last week to much fanfare. Along with the Democratic National Committee, the Biden team is also heavily promoting a separate, exclusive meet-and-greet with the former president before the main gathering through a flurry of text messages, emails, and social media posts.
“This is a big one, and I’m not going to lie: I’m pretty excited,” Biden wrote in a note Tuesday.
Their repeated prodding has paid off. But Democrats still lag behind their Republican counterparts in fundraising, with the GOP having more than double in the bank.
About 120,000 guests are expected to log on for the Biden-Obama fundraiser, raising $4 million as of Tuesday morning. To compare, a similar grassroots event with former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg and 35,000 other Biden supporters in May brought in $1 million. Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren last week also headlined the two-term vice president and 36-year Delaware senator’s most successful big-money gathering of the election cycle, collecting $6 million from about 620 people.
Biden earned a reputation during the primary as a sluggish fundraiser, routinely trailing the likes of Buttigieg, Warren, and small-dollar juggernaut Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. Yet last month, his first collaborating with the DNC as the party’s presumptive presidential nominee, Democrats beat President Trump, the Republican National Committee, and their associated fundraising groups for the first time this campaign season, boasting an $80.8 million haul to their $74 million.
Now Biden and his allies want to raise $100 million in June as they attempt to make up the cash-on-hand difference between them and the Republicans, according to the New York Times Tuesday. Democrats have $122.2 million in their collective war chest, while the GOP has $265 million in its coffers.
Former Charlottesville, Virginia, Mayor Michael Signer, a Democrat, said his party’s fundraising surge correlates with a surge in the appeal of Biden’s message. Particularly when contrasted against Trump’s “erratic, self-pitying, and uninspiring leadership,” Signer, told the Washington Examiner.
“Quite simply, he is not the right leader for this time, and that is becoming more apparent in dollars and poll figures every single day he is outmatched by the crises of 2020,” Signer said, listing the COVID-19 outbreak, the virus’s economic fallout, and the movement against racial injustice and police brutality.
But Biden, who insists he asked Obama not to endorse him during the primary, risks being overshadowed and becoming too reliant on his old boss, one of the party’s most popular Democrats.
Signer, author of Cry Havoc: Charlottesville and American Democracy Under Siege, disagreed. In fact, he advocated the opposite because Trump was “his own worst enemy.”
“Biden is putting Obama front-and -enter of his campaign now to highlight these weaknesses of Trump and his own self-inflicted wounds,” Signer said. “I suspect it will bait Trump into more of the same errors and, in retrospect, will prove to be an inspired strategic decision.”
Democratic strategist Juven Jacob was more measured, saying the Biden team had “nothing to fear” as long as they carefully deployed Obama. Ideally, they’d hold a rally where Biden and Obama could “raise their hands together.” Given the pandemic, a digital fundraiser was the “next best thing.”
“You don’t necessarily need a huge rally to build momentum and build the campaign, as long as you are doing it smartly and making sure that you get out there at the proper time,” he said, a veiled swipe at Trump’s 6,200-person event last weekend in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Bucking the trend of incumbents outraising their challengers, Jacob underscored May’s numbers as a good voter enthusiasm barometer.
“Whenever campaigns use past presidents or surrogates, it’s always tempting to go with the story of how the candidate needs the surrogate, but I think it goes to show that the party is united,” he said. “We have a former president coming out to campaign for the candidate, and you can’t say the same thing for the other side.”
Republican consultant Kimberly Bellissimo, however, remained confident about GOP fundraising four or so months out from November’s contests.
“Small-dollar donor prospects seem to be spending more time with our mail content during the coronavirus period,” she said. “They are responding with steady and significant contributions to candidates, legitimate political action committees, and conservative nonprofits.”
